Takeaways From Vanderbilt Basketball's 74-51 Win Over Wake Forest – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt basketball ran away from Wake Forest Thursday to move to 2-0 on the season and subsequently picked up its first power-five win of the 2026-27 season.
Wake Forest pushed Mark Byington and company, but Vanderbilt outscored Wake 35-24 in the second half and clearly indicated that it's a different caliber of team than the one it faced on Thursday night. Vanderbilt will have another challenge Tuesday as Memphis comes to Memorial Gymnasium.
Here's a few takeaways from Vanderbilt's Thursday-night win.
The way Vanderbilt turned it on down the stretch, oh man
Wake Forest trailed Vanderbilt by four at one point, but Vanderbilt won by 23 on Thursday. If that doesn’t say something about this group’s explosive nature, it will be difficult to find something that does. 
When Vanderbilt finally looked like Vanderbilt, it pulled away from Wake Forest and was clearly the better team down the stretch. That looked like the team Byington thinks Vanderbilt can ultimately be. It wasn’t that for 30 minutes on Thursday, but man did it look like it was capable of making the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday night. 
Vanderbilt had it all going. Its guardplay was dynamic. It was making shots at all three levels. It was guarding the ball and holding Wake Forest to long stretches without scoring. That’s a dynamic team. Byington just has to unlock it more often. 
Vanderbilt has to play a lot better than that moving forward
Wake Forest isn’t as bad as the metrics indicated, but Vanderbilt also isn’t as good as what it showed in its opener against Bellarmine–at least, not yet. It’s still going to have to play significantly better basketball if it’s going to win against teams closer to it in talent range. 
There’s been undertones coming out of the Huber Center that indicate Vanderbilt still has to get significantly better before it’s a threat to do what it’s setting out to do in 2026-27 and Thursday night demonstrated that. 
Vanderbilt is very clearly talented and is a collection of highly-touted individual pieces, but this is going to take a bit. Vanderbilt still has to figure out what it is. It’s still got to figure out who it is, on both ends. 
Welcome to the Ant Brown experience
Brown isn’t going to be perfect, but he’s good enough to change the outlook of games. He did that Thursday night. 
When Vanderbilt had it rolling in the second half, Brown was the one leading it. Brown went for 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting from the field and 4-for-9 shooting from 3-point range on Thursday and was perhaps the most confident player on the floor. Brown still has to refine his shot selection, but he’s among the best difficult shotmakers on this Vanderbilt team. 
Brown faced a few older guards Thursday night, but was fearless in the face of them. He’s going to have his freshman moments in 2026-27, but he’s going to push Vanderbilt towards the finish line a few times this season. 
Don’t forget about Ace Glass, either
Before Brown got it going, Glass was Vanderbilt’s go-to guy and assured that this thing wasn’t going to be close by the time it was over. 
Glass went for 16 points on 6-for-14 shooting from the field and 4-for-11 shooting from 3-point range. While doing so, he demonstrated that he’s a reliable second option to Tanner and can clearly shoulder some of the load when Tanner doesn’t have it. 
That said something about Vanderbilt outside of Tanner
Tanner went for 17 points on 6-for-14 shooting and recorded a double double, but he didn’t look like himself for the first 30 minutes of the night. That was okay, though. 
Glass and Brown picked up Tanner’s slack. Bing made shots and defended at a high level. Vanderbilt bullied Wake Forest on the glass and outrebounded it by 15 before this was over. Vanderbilt needs Tanner to be somewhere near his best–and more aggressive–but he doesn’t appear to have quite as much pressure on him as he did a year ago. 
Vanderbilt’s depth may fade down the stretch of a season, but it does appear to have a few complimentary pieces forming around Tanner.
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Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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